Sunday, May 27, 2012

1940: Hoffman’s Derinda Farm in the U.S. Census

The 1940 U.S. census was released to the public on April 2nd.
There still isn’t a complete index to it, but rural areas like Derinda Township
in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, have a small number of pages that are easy to
read through. The Hoffman farm family was counted on 12 April 1940. The
household begins on the third sheet and continues onto the fourth.[i]
The pages list many familiar names: Wurster, Endriss, Teichler, Dittmar, Krug,
and Klopf.

Youngest in the family, John Hoffman (age 60) was the primary force
in the family and was listed as head of household and person supplying the
information. Next is oldest brother Henry (66) who only is listed as a laborer
while William (64) is a brother and Minnie (62) is a sister and housekeeper.
All were born in Illinois and lived in the same house five years earlier in
1935. The farm is reported with a value of only $1000 (perhaps that is just the
house?) All reported fifth as the highest grade completed in school. None of them were on one of the two lines in each page for which supplemental questions were asked. Click on the image to see a larger version of some of the information.

Combined parts of the two census pages, left side

Missing from the family are brothers Charles and Fred.
Fred died in 1934 and Charles had for many years lived in Rockford, Illinois.
He will be easier to find in the 1940 census once the index for Illinois is
completed.